science wire

Stanford Earth scientist Scott Fendorf helped discover how trace amounts of arsenic were moving from sediments into groundwater aquifers in Southern California. Can water ever be too clean? If the intent is to store it underground, the answer, surprisingly, is yes. In a new study, Stanford scientists have shown that recycled water percolating into underground storage aquifers in Southern California picked up trace amounts of arsenic because the water was too pure.

Much of Alaska and the arctic lack modern, reliable maps needed to support modern activities including ground and air transportation, safe recreation, land management, sustainable development, and scientific studies.

University of California, Berkeley, seismologists have produced for the first time a sharp, three-dimensional scan of Earth's interior that conclusively connects plumes of hot rock rising through the mantle with surface hotspots that generate volcanic island chains like Hawaii, Samoa and Iceland.

Most people in England could not get work without motorised modes of transport, according to new research by the University of Leeds.

Research presented to the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference today looks at the argument for backing larger city regions in the north.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference currently being held in Paris is our best and last chance for a binding global agreement to cut emissions and help our planet.

Research by the University of Liverpool will contribute to the next generation of tools for forecasting geological disasters, including volcanic eruptions. Geoscientists from the University's School of Environmental Sciences were able to define the primary control on the accuracy of forecasting the failure of materials - which leads to a disaster - by studying magma involved in explosive eruptions.

You don't name a sea creature after an ancient Greek warship unless it's built like a predator. That's certainly true of the recently discovered Pentecopterus , a giant sea scorpion with the sleek features of a penteconter, one of the first Greek galley ships. A Yale University research team says Pentecopterus lived 467 million years ago and could grow to nearly six feet, with a long head shield, a narrow body, and large, grasping limbs for trapping prey.

Each spring, powerful dust storms in the deserts of Mongolia and northern China send thick clouds of particles into the atmosphere.

A team of scientists and engineers have been able to sample methane and CO2 gases in the remote South Atlantic thanks to the redesign of an autonomous UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) octocopter.

Ten years ago, ETH Zurich began collaborating with TU Delft and RWTH Aachen on a trinational Joint Master Programme in Applied Geophysics.

Intensive agriculture is taking a toll on bats in the Western Ghats of India, but shade-grown coffee, remnant rainforest patches and riverine vegetation strips may help struggling species hang on.

The second ice age during the Cryogenian period was not followed by the sudden and chaotic melting-back of the ice as previously thought, but ended with regular advances and retreats of the ice, according to research published by scientists from the University of Birmingham today (24 August 2015). The researchers also found that the constant advance and retreat of ice during this period was caused by the Earth wobbling on its axis.

Transmission lines that funnel power from hydroelectric dams and wind turbines across Eastern Washington affect greater sage grouse habitat by isolating fragile populations and limiting movement, a new study finds. The paper, which looks at how features in the landscape limit the species' distribution and gene flow, is the first to show that power-line corridors are an obstacle for sage grouse as they move across the landscape to feed and reproduce.

Senior Science Adviser at European Space Agency discusses 'most exciting space exploration mission in decades' Almost a year since the Rosetta spacecraft rendezvoused with a comet over 400 million km

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. When trying to explain the potential effects of climate change on plants, fish and wildlife, scientists usually resort to language that fails to convey the impact of warming.

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society.

A new international study, led by the University of Bristol, is the first to use a high-resolution, large-scale computer model to estimate how much ice the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could lose over the next couple of centuries, and how much that could add to sea-level rise. The study, which paints a clearer picture of West Antarctica's future than was previously possible, is published today in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

The crisis facing migrants on the shores of Europe shows no sign of abating. As EU member states prevaricate on how to manage a human and political crisis, Dr Jessica Jacobs from QMUL's School of Geography says: "The system is paralysed.

Washington state's housing market remained strong in the second quarter of 2015. Home sale prices, the number of sales and the number of new building permits were all up compared with a year ago, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

Recent press and social media coverage have reminded residents of the Pacific Northwest that they live in a seismically active region.

NASA has been investigating features on the lunar landscape that may be "skylights," or openings to larger caves below the Moon's surface.

Running streams are key sources of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, but why is it so? An international team of researchers, led by Umeå University, publishes the answer in the prestigious.

A scale of simple numbers unnerves us when we think about earthquakes, as Pacific Northwest residents have been prone to do lately: Whew, just a 3.

Scientists are getting an unprecedented look at a geological process in South America that mirrors the formation of America's Rocky Mountains. Writing , a team of geophysicists says its findings may help scientists better understand phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanoes, in addition to the development of the Rockies.

Once mercury is emitted into the atmosphere from the smokestacks of power plants, the pollutant has a complicated trajectory; even after it settles onto land and sinks into oceans, mercury can be re-emitted back into the atmosphere repeatedly. This so-called "grasshopper effect" keeps the highly toxic substance circulating as "legacy emissions" that, combined with new smokestack emissions, can extend the environmental effects of mercury for decades.

The private library of Stanford's first geology professor, John Casper Branner, was the foundation on which the Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections was built.

Widespread species are at just as high risk of being wiped out as rare ones after global mass extinction events, says new research by University of Leeds scientists.

Geographer maps repeated attempts to bring cross-city monorail and tube travel to Manchester Failed bids to connect Manchester city centre to its airport over the decades have been mapped at The University of Manchester.

Three University of Bristol volcanologists - Professor Steve Sparks, Dr Susanna Jenkins and Dr Sarah Brown - are lead editors and authors of a new book, Global Volcanic Hazards and Risks, published this month.

Christelle Snow/UCLA UCLA staff meteorologist James Murakami scans the skies from his weather station atop the Math Sciences Building.

National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Earth System Research Laboratory An atmospheric river flows into California, February 2004.

For more than 20 years, Caltech geologist Jean-Philippe Avouac has collaborated with the Department of Mines and Geology of Nepal to study the Himalayas-the most active, above-water mountain range on Earth-to learn more about the processes that build mountains and trigger earthquakes. Over that period, he and his colleagues have installed a network of GPS stations in Nepal that allows them to monitor the way Earth's crust moves during and in between earthquakes.

Comment: Forget the cheesy image - Cilla Black was a pioneer By Professor Andy Medhurst , Senior Lecturer in Media, Film and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex Cilla Black was the only woman to have two number-one hits in the group-swamped mid-1960s pop charts.

One of the most important maps of the UK ever made - described as the 'Magna Carta of geology' - is to go on permanent public display in Cambridge after being restored to its former glory.

On 11 August, researchers from Oxford University will fire up a Japanese potters' kiln in Wytham woods.

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society.

Has Australia's climate always been so dry? Have the tropical reefs around Australia always been there? What will happen to Australia's climate and reefs in the future? The answers lie deep under the ocean, five million years in the past.

A recent article in The New Yorker triggered widespread discussion, and some panic, about the risk of a huge earthquake off the Pacific Northwest coast.

University welcomes approval of Masterplan proposal The University of Sussex's campus Masterplan has been given the go-ahead after the proposal's original rejection by Brighton & Hove City Council.

A study published in 2014 found Queensland was relatively safe from the threat of a devastating tsunami, but southern states on the east coast might not be so lucky. Researcher Associate Professor Huilin Xing from The University of Queensland School of Earth Sciences said that the greatest tsunami threat to Australia's eastern coast was in the southeastern region and originated from an earthquake trench south of New Zealand.

Wild chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda are increasingly eating clay to supplement the minerals in their diet, according to a long-term international study published in the early version of the journal PLOS ONE . The paper led by the University of Oxford describes how the researchers observed wild chimpanzees in the Budongo forest eating and drinking from clay pits and termite mounds.

Dr Iwan Wyn Rees will use the Eisteddfod to about changing Welsh dialects A Cardiff University linguist is using the National Eisteddfod to shed light on how Welsh dialects are changing around the country.

All around the deserts of Utah, Nevada, southern Oregon, and eastern California, ancient shorelines line the hillsides above dry valley floors, like bathtub rings - remnants of the lakes once found throughout the region.

Gary Glesener, director of UCLA's Modeling and Educational Demonstrations Laboratory, gives us a tour of the lab's Augmented Reality Sandbox.

The Mississippi River delta is a rich ecosystem of barrier islands, estuaries, and wetlands that's home to a diverse mix of wildlife - as well as more than 2 million people.

A historical geographer from The University of Nottingham has been elected to the British Academy , the UK's champion of the humanities and social sciences, in recognition of his outstanding research.